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Saturday, January 12, 2013

Characteristics of High Maturity SOA Implementation

Cloud adoption is increasing and so is SOA implementation. As the analysts point out that be it cloud adoption or SOA adoption, unless appropriate governance framework is in place ahead of the adoption journey, it is highly likely that the perceived benefits might not be realized. Benchmarking is a good approach to identify the current state of SOA implementation as compared to an industry recognized maturity model. This also helps to define a target state and then work towards achieving it. Amongst many SOA maturity models the Open Group's OSIMM v2 is quite popular and defines seven levels. While the first three levels are classified as foundational, Level 4 through 7 expects certain demonstrated characteristics and the Level 7 indicates the highest level of maturity.

OSIMM V2 provides the base model which is designed to be extended or customized by the customers and the consulting organizations. OSIMM has seven dimensions across seven maturity levels. The state represented by these levels are given below:

Level 1: Silo - No integration implementation.

Level 2: Integrated - Yes, technology is in place to integrate the silos, but they don’t extend to common standards in data or business process.

Level 3: Componentized - IT systems componentized, but the components are not loosely coupled thus limiting the interoperability

Level 4: Service - Services are identified and implemented and composite systems are built from the loosely coupled services. However, the composition and the service definition itself are implemented using bespoke code rather than by a declarative flow language, thus limiting agility.

Level 5: Composite Services - Construction of a business process is possible through use of BPM tools by assembling the relevant interacting services is possible. At this level agility is possible, but developers still have a role to play under the guidance of business analysts.

Level 6: Virtualized services - At this level the services are virtualized, i.e. a level of indirection is introduced (like a facade layer based on the dependency injection principles), with which the services are more decoupled from the infrastructure on which it is running. But still definition and implementation requires the help of developers.

Level 7: Dynamically Re-configurable Services - At this level Composite services are assembled in run time by the business analysts or by the system itself, based on various parameters and using service repositories.

Let us now examine Level 7 in detail across the seven domains. Note that like in any other Maturity Model, definition of a level means that the system meets all the previous levels.

Business Dimension:

OSIMM specifies about 19 assessment questions under the business domain and the answers to these questions will be used in assessing the current state. The following are the key characteristics of this domain in practice:

High Agility - Enterprises services are available on demand.

Existence of EA - A well defined EA exists, which includes a formal end-to-end definition of business process flow

Use of BPM - BPM is in use for defining and testing process flows necessary to meet well defined SLAs.

Integraton - Services being integrated across the enterprise and externally with business partners

Organization & Governance domain:

Under this domain, the focus is on how an organization formally defines and documents their organization and governance processes. OSIMM recommends about 11 questions to gather required information which helps the assessor to form opinion on the current state. When at level 7, the following are key characteristics are expected to be demonstrated:

Adaptive Enterprise - Ability to adjust operations quickly and smoothly to meet the rapid changes in the market, technology and priorities and being able to evolve with the global economy, so that the services never become obsolete.

Aligned with Business Strategy - Services are modelled and managed as elements of the evolving business strategy.

Measurement & Monitoring - Appropriate service metrics are identified, defined and automatically gathered and are effectively used in monitoring and in decision making.

Governance - SOA governance is part of the organization culture

Method Dimension:

This domain is about the formal use of SOA architectural design, construction and deployment methodology in the organization. OSIMM suggests about 10 questions, with which the assessor will be able to gather required information to map the maturity indicator to the associated maturity attributes. Here the key characteristics that maps to Level 7:

Adaptive Enterprise - The design, construction and deployment methodologies evolve in line with the industry standards and best practices.

In this domain, the focus is on the Application architecture being designed using the SOA principles, usage of constructs such as loose-coupling, separation of concerns and usage of related technologies such as XML, webservices, service bus, service registry, virtualization etc. The following key characteristics are required to be assessed at Level 7:

Adaptive Enterprise - In the sense that the enterprise shall be able to adapt to and use the evolving SOA design principles, the tools and technologies.

Dynamic Application Assembly - The application architecture and design should support the dynamic re-configuration of the services and support consumption of services by external business partners.

The formal use of SOA methods, principles, patterns, frameworks and techniques in the SOA architecture is evaluated under this domain. There are 11 questions to help the assessors to gather required information. The key characteristics of this domain to be an that are required to be assessed at Level 7 are the following:

Adaptive Enterprise - While the use of formal methods, principles, patterns frameworks and techniques is necessary, these should also evolve in line with the industry practices in architecting SOA services .

Formal Enterprise BIS - Design and implementation of formal enterprise Business Information Services supporting both the enterprise and external entities.

Integration - Appropriate architecture is used to support enterprise wide integration and also externally to support partner entities.

Information Dimension:

This domain focuses on the existence of a formal information architecture that supports a master data model and implements a common business data vocabulary. The assessors can make use of 13 questions suggested by OSIMM to assess this domain. The following are the key characteristics required to be assessed at Level 7:

Adaptive Enterprise - In the sense to have the information architecture evolve in line with the industry standards and practices.

Vocabularies - Existence of Business data vocabularies, with ability to easily expand or enhance to support new services, business partners and process re-configuration.

Data definition - Business data is defined using semantic web constructs or ontologies.

BIS Model - A formal enterprise Business Information Model has been designed and implemented that includes both enterprise and external relationship entities.

Master Data - Existence and use of Master Data services.

Infrastructure & Management Domain:

This domain is about the IT Infrastructure that supports the non-functional and operational requirements and SLAs needed to operate an SOA environment. There are 12 questions that will be useful for the assessors to gather the required information. The key characteristics that need to be established in this domain are:

Adaptive Enterprise - In the sense that the infrastructure and related facilities used in supporting the SOA environment should evolve with the industry best.

Service Management - Tracks and predicts changes to the services necessary to optimize the quality.

Service re-usability - services are re-used in new and dynamic ways without negatively impactin the Quality of Service.

While the first three Levels are classified as Foundational, the Level 4 is where existence of minimal SOA practices are expected. That way, we can say that one should atleast start at Level 4 and should look forward to transition to higher levels. The Open Group’s OSIMM also lays out the Assessment methods and the assessment questions to facilitate the adoption.